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Tuesday, April 08, 2008

Polygamy e-mails

*warning...foul language will be used.

My last two posts on the YFZ/FLDS have resulted in a shit storm in my inbox. The following e-mail is one of many I have received, but the message is the same in all. Thus, for all that e-mailed, consider this my response to you.

The secular world will never understand the beauty of polygamy. How are you qualified to pass judgement on us? We are living the one true principle given to us by the prophet Joseph Smith. We demand our right to live with freedom of religion! The United States has stepped on our rights and...now they have taken our children to place them in worldly homes where the girls will suffer. They will cut their hair (god's crowning glory), paint them with whores make-up, and give them to boys with no holy bond to court in worldly ways. They say we're abusing our children!! Ridiculous. Our children are loved better than secularist mothers who leave them at daycares to promote their ego by having careers. It takes a real mother to raise children. Spiritual marriage is beautiful. I am to my sister wives as I am to my husband. We are populating the world with perfect souls and not souls like the godless nigg*** who are ruining the USA. No one cares what you think of polygamy. We know we are living God's true ordinance in accordance with eternity's principles. I will thank you to stop spreading vicious lies or attitudes about JESUS CHRIST'S TRUE CHURCH. You will not stop us.I left it intact to convey the over-riding message. However, to all of you who e-mailed to a similar note...this is my blog and I have a few things to say in response.

The secular world will never understand the beauty of polygamy.Actually, as I said before, I have no problem with consenting adults practicing polygamy. My opposition is to child abuse, rape, and fucking religious power trips that attempt to justify sexual molestation. It's unjustifiable. ALWAYS!

How are you qualified to pass judgement on us?I don't need qualifications to know that raping a child is bullshit.

We are living the one true principle given to us by the prophet Joseph Smith.I don't care if you're living the "one true principle" of Buddha! When your principle allows for eighty year old men to take twelve year olds as wives, you officially lose the moral high ground. Joseph Smith was a con-artist. He was a criminal who was murdered as a result of his decision to crap on the Constitution you're wrapping yourself in. And, THAT, is fact. Your beloved principle is based on the actions of a man who would send his buddies on missions and then marry their wives. What a fantastic role model you've chosen for yourself. *rolls eyes*

We demand our right to live with freedom of religion! The United States has stepped on our rights...I could give two shits about your rights right now. It baffles me that you could sit at a computer, the lot of you, and cry "foul!" on the alleged limitation of your civil rates while at the same time advocating a system that takes rights away from children and women. Your children have rights, too. They have a right to an education. They have a right to play. And, they damn sure have the right to expect protection when a religious tyrant takes away their freedoms.

...now they have taken our children to place them in worldly homes where the girls will suffer.Oh, this is rich. I'll wager $100 that playing with Crayolas is a hundred times less likely to screw up your kids than being touched inappropriately from some pervert who likes little girls and uses their belief in God to terrorize them into submission. Yeah. You're right. Watching a Disney movie or having short hair or trying on some Bonnie Bell lip gloss is a one way sin ticket. *rolls eyes* Give me a freakin' break.

They will cut their hair (god's crowning glory), paint them with whores make-up, and give them to boys with no holy bond to court in worldly ways.If you think this whole thing is about getting your hands on a kid to cut their hair, then you're even more screwed up than I previously imagined. Prove to me that your "holy bonds" of matrimony are "holy". Just because you polish a turd with a religious dust rag doesn't change the fact it's a turd. You can dress your ass-backwards rituals in vestments, but that doesn't make them right.

They say we're abusing our children!! Ridiculous.NO! NOT ridiculous. If you stand by and watch a fifty year old rape a fifteen year old, then you officially fail as a parent. Hell! I would even go so far as to say that you fail as a human being. Somewhere along the line, your religion damaged a parent's natural instinct to protect. Abuse takes many shapes and forms. I'm sure there are FLDS mothers who genuinely love their children and believe they are doing right by them. I don't dispute that. But, clearly, these children are being preyed on.

Our children are loved better than secularist mothers who leave them at daycares to promote their ego by having careers.Here's the thing... you're acting as if you chose to stay home with your sister wives and scads of kids. That's bullshit and you know it. You didn't have a choice to do otherwise. You can't act all noble and holier-than-thou for staying home with your kids when you didn't make a conscious effort to do so. Furthermore, if your version of "loving better" includes little Susie being promised to Uncle Slappy when she's ten years old, then I think I'll pass on your version of "loving better". I know you'll find this difficult to believe, but I'm a secular mother who is home with her kids twenty-four seven.

It takes a real mother to raise children.I agree. It's too bad children have to be mothers when they are still children, huh? It doesn't take a "real mother" to have a child - it takes one sperm, one egg, and a horizontal lambada or two. MOTHERING is not giving birth. MOTHERING is not staying home. MOTHERING is doing everything within your power to make sure your children are safe, happy, healthy, stimulated, respected, and blossoming. Mothering is wanting a better life for your children, not stubbornly attaching yourself to an unjustifiable sequence/history of abuse.

We are populating the world with perfect souls and not souls like the godless nigg*** who are ruining the USA.Woooooooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! Do you have any idea how jacked up that is? *speechless*

No one cares what you think of polygamy. We know we are living God's true ordinance in accordance with eternity's principles.Again, it's not the polygamy that's the issue - it's the CHILD RAPE and KIDDY BRIDES that people oppose. If this is your God's "true ordinance", then you are worshipping a monster. If your God sanctions sexual abuse, then I now have one more reason for not respecting your religion or your God. Should your God exist, he is undeserving of respect.

I will thank you to stop spreading vicious lies or attitudes about JESUS CHRIST'S TRUE CHURCH. You will not stop us.Let's hope you're wrong.

38 comments:

You rock, PM! Seriouly you are such a role model against this total bullshit. It is so sad to see women brainwashed to think that this abuse is OK. I can't get mad at them - they are the vitims too. But calling them on it will hopefully open some eyes.

I wish I could take some of those girls in - If you hear of anyone pulling together donations to help them - let us know here. Thank you!

cps isn't always right you know. we know kids die in protective care when they are taken from the family. where is your wity answer now?

look you either believe smith was a prophet or you don't. apostacy looms large in all lds members who deny the command of the prophet while we live his command. gay people raise children in worse so i suggest you go after a witch hunt on them. the government ignores the negroes when they have fatherless babies on welfare. my kids know who there father is as well as mothers who treat each like they birth them.

Collette said...cps isn't always right you know. we know kids die in protective care when they are taken from the family. where is your wity answer now?Do you believe this to be a game of wit? I certainly don't. As for children who die while in foster care, I don't doubt that this happens on occasion. In fact, I know it has (the Lethbridge case in Michigan comes to mine). However, these children aren't yet in foster care. To my knowledge, most were removed with their mothers and are being well fed, provided for, and secured from too much media influence. It's not like they took four hundred children and tossed them in random foster homes around the country. And, with the huge spotlight that's on the Texas department of child services, I have a very hard time believing that they would allow anything bad to happen to these children. Whereas, we KNOW there are common and horrific abuses within the FLDS.

look you either believe smith was a prophet or you don't.Don't.

apostacy looms large in all lds members who deny the command of the prophet while we live his commandJoseph Smith also commanded that his followers carry out the sacrament of blood atonement. Are you following that command? If so, I know some FBI members who'd like to speak with you. If not, then you're violating your prophets unpalatable command.

gay people raise children in worse so i suggest you go after a witch hunt on them. I happen to know a few homosexual couples with children. NEVER have I had any reason to question the choices they make for their children. Homosexuals don't pimp out their kids to other homosexuals. Would you like to offer another piss poor analogy?

the government ignores the negroes when they have fatherless babies on welfare. my kids know who there father is as well as mothers who treat each like they birth them.

This is rich. Man, you're just busting out with all sorts of irony. Over 90% of FLDS women and children are on the federal and state welfare rolls. Does the phrase "Bleeding the beast." sound familiar? It should. Your prophets (FLDS) have claimed that this is a justification for lying about paternity on official government documents. For a people who claim to hold family dear, the number of girls who won't name a father for their child is shocking. See, here's the thing...your kids may know who their father is, but it's a shame that they can never acknowledge him as "father" in public, claim his name, or talk about how many other moms they have. Nor can they depend on him to provide for their needs.

Perhaps worth noting is that back when polygamy was part of the mainstream LDS (as in, the LDS in full instead of the latter day splinter groups, it was hardly mainstream itself; the United States of the time right after Utah joined the union was justifiably hostile to how the LDS ran the state) one of the common things was that if a man had sex with a virgin, she was now his wife; that way it wasn't a sin, and the system entirely agreed with men taking multiple wives so it became practice for the men to try and sleep with the girls as soon as they could.

Honestly, this is historical fact; one place I saw it was in a PRO polygamists documentary that spent most of the movie decrying the oppression the polygamists underwent, like how Congress was going to deny Mormons the right to vote, or how the LDS was forced under duress and threat of breakup to change its tune on polygamy and hence the polygamists breaking off (and within Mormonism they do have a theological point, although Mormonism believes in "ongoing revelation" which means that under LDS theology the currently mainstream LDS has a large claim to theological consistency too regardless of the about-face on polygamy).

Also, for anyone so sure that polygamist families never mess up their children, just watch a documentary or read a book about the Lost Boys. Trust me. You'll understand, then (unless you actually have no human empathy or ability to see when people in power are selfishly eliminating the competition for their petty desires).

Pmom, my heart goes out to you. I can't begin to imagine the emotions and conflicts you are having to deal with right now. This cataclysmic stupidity is the perfect example of why religion needs to be tossed in the garbage can of history. No matter how intentioned people may be, if you base your understandings of the universe on fairy tales that haven't so much as a single speck of evidence, you are bound to make horrible decisions. Now real people are being impacted in the most devastating ways as a result of yet another belief in fairy tales. How long does this idiocy have to continue before our species starts to catch on?

This whole thing is just sick.I so am disgusted by this. On so many levels I just don't know where to begin.How is shit like this happening in the 21st century ? Joseph smith was known to be full of bullshit when he was alive,why his tales were given any credence then is beyond me, and now we know there is no evidence that supports his ideas and much evidence that proves otherwise. There is no other conclusion than the whole book of mormon is complete fabrication and is just a tool to extract money from "believers" and subjugate women. Not alone in those aspects I suppose.Collette you can try and justify it all you want but A farm for paedophile victims, it's just plain wrong.There is nothing wrong in "polygamy" itself but indoctrination and not allowing children to be educated to the best standards so they can make their own choices is morally a crime.As far as I am concerned any parent that brings up a child to think that their only success in life should be marriage and childbirth as failed both as a parent and as a human being.

I thought about this all night long, and I still don't know what to say. Then I came here and read Collette's little speaach, and am even more outraged than I was when I started.

So much hatred and venom is coming from a religion that apparently espouses "good" and "right" -- how hypocritical! It is deeply saddening, and frightening, to see the brainwashing that has occured here. Kids that don't know what a crayon is? Normalcy is handing your kid over to be sexualy abused and treated like a brood mare as soon as she reaches puberty? Holding someone's child while a sick old man beats on her? Nice.

I have also learned that I am, apparently, a 'secularist mother who leave them at daycares to promote their ego by having careers'. Riiiight. I work at this shit job because I love it, and it feeds my ego. No, dumbass. I work to contribute to my family. I work because I have a brain, and am capable. I like my hobbies, and my things, and want to help provide for DD. This stuff costs money. SAHMs are one thing - them I respect - they are volunteering, contributing to their children's welfare, managing a home. And us working moms are great too. We know what needs to be done to support our family, and we do it. But these FLDS mothers? WTF? I'd rather be ego-driven and know my child is safe and well cared for then knowingly hand my child over to someone who most certainly plans to do serious mental and physical damage to them.

And as for this gem: "They will cut their hair (god's crowning glory), paint them with whores make-up, and give them to boys with no holy bond to court in worldly ways" -- I'm also apparently a card carrying whore. How exciting! I cut my hair, my husband shaves his head, AND I cut DD's hair. We are so for sure going to hell for that, huh?

PM, I know this is family friendly so I'll keep my comments short and sweet. I just wanted to express admiration for your restraint and patience in dealing with these people. I don't think anything else going through my mind about this would be appropriate so I'll leave it at that. Keep up the good work.

PMomma wrote: Furthermore, if your version of "loving better" includes little Susie being promised to Uncle Slappy when she's ten years old, then I think I'll pass on your version of "loving better".

This made toast come out of my nose. LMAO. Do you know where I can find Uncle Slappy? Since I'm gay I need to find someone to abuse my son beause "gays [supposedly] raise children in much worse conditions" and E just doesn't look like he's suffering.

Thanks Collette, your genius comments have enlightened me. I didn't know that your type of LDS included bigotry AND homophobia instead of just child abuse! It gets better and better.

This whole thing is just sick.I so am disgusted by this. On so many levels I just don't know where to begin.

Families are sick & disgusting for you? I am not surprised that you in the world would make family a burden & negative.

Joseph smith was known to be full of bullshit when he was alive,why his tales were given any credence then is beyond me, and now we know there is no evidence that supports his ideas and much evidence that proves otherwiseLiar! All lies. Joseph Smith was given visions from angels & Jesus & God!! He was a prophet like the prophets of the bible who God trusted with a life changing testimony. How could an uneducated man like Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon? He'd never been to Egypt so how did he translate the reformed egyptian of the tablets? God gave him a gift show he could share this wonderful news. A new testament of Jesus! How did he do that without being blessed in spirit. He is pure.

As far as I am concerned any parent that brings up a child to think that their only success in life should be marriage and childbirth as failed both as a parent and as a human being.

I am sad for you. Motherhood is a blessed & honorable job that God designed women to be. Not using the gift you are given by god is a slap in his face. I have seven children from my womb and four from my sisters in eternal families. Our daughters want to be mothers and wives. They want to marry righteous men who listen to God and the prophet's commandments. It is through men that we have salvation so of course we want our daughters to find a righteous man and raise families.

Oh boy. Yet another part of the LDS church newly revealed doctrine that the FLDS folks ignore.

Collette is a prize. I hope she keeps coming back.Big dumb chimp, what a fitting name. Collette is a prize! A beautiful sweet spirit. Dark skin people are cursed. The "Mormons" in Salt Lake City change doctrine because they lost prophecy & allowed false prophets to control the church. The false prophets bent to public opinion. It's heresy.We FLDS preserve a pure religion for time and all eternity. SLC LDS are apostates.It is deeply saddening, and frightening, to see the brainwashing that has occured hereIt is brainwashing to to pressure girls to go to college. You are a hippocrit! Secular people brainwash their daughters about how men and women are equal when its not true. Women are sacred vessels. There's no greater honor then bringing a soul to the earth.

I work at this shit job because I love it, and it feeds my ego. No, dumbass. I work to contribute to my family.Your children are suffering. Look at the drugs & pornography & video games & idol worship in children today. If you were home where you should be maybe secular children would not have the highest percents of violence like Columbine. Your kids go to schools and shoot up their class mates! You never hear that from an FLDS child. Don't lecture me on parenting untilll your children are as good as ours are. This raid was a tragedy of democracy. The "informant" is probably a young woman who has guilty consciences that torments them. She has shamed her other wives and husband. Bringing outsiders in to a marriage is shameful. She's probably a spoiled child who was not ready for the blessing of polygamy. Now we are paying for her immature nature.

thora said...Families are sick & disgusting for you? I am not surprised that you in the world would make family a burden & negative.

My family is not a burden by any means. I tried staying at home, and couldn't afford it. I work because I want to have quality healthcare, and quality education for my children to participate in.

Motherhood is a blessed & honorable job that God designed women to be. Not using the gift you are given by god is a slap in his face. I have seven children from my womb and four from my sisters in eternal families. Our daughters want to be mothers and wives. They want to marry righteous men who listen to God and the prophet's commandments. It is through men that we have salvation so of course we want our daughters to find a righteous man and raise families.

Yes, motherhood is an honor and a joy. It is also difficult, especially in today's political/social environment. You STILL don't understand though. The point is that girls should not be limited to ONLY marriage and motherhood! We women have brains that are just as good as a man's! What about Marie Curie(chemist), Catherine the Great (modernized Russia), Susan B. Anthony (began the Women's Suffrage Movement), Jane Goodall (environmentalist), Ida B. Wells Barnett (founder NAACP), Jane Addams (charter member NAACP, Nobel Peace Prize winner) and Margaret Thatcher (British Prime Minister)? Not to mention many others I could name. Where would we be without them?

Dark skin people are cursed. The "Mormons" in Salt Lake City change doctrine because they lost prophecy & allowed false prophets to control the church. The false prophets bent to public opinion. It's heresy.We FLDS preserve a pure religion for time and all eternity. SLC LDS are apostates.

I work with several Mormons, one of whom is Asian. Should he and the other dark skinned Mormons be drug out in the street and shot? Would lynching be better? And your religion is a "pure" religion? Yeah, right. You show your purity and goodness so well!

Your children are suffering. Look at the drugs & pornography & video games & idol worship in children today. If you were home where you should be maybe secular children would not have the highest percents of violence like Columbine. Your kids go to schools and shoot up their class mates! You never hear that from an FLDS child. Don't lecture me on parenting untilll your children are as good as ours are.

Yes, children are suffering, not only in this country, but all over the world. They're suffering for many reasons, and many are suffering and DYING for their religion. How DARE you compare all children to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold?? That's ignorant, rude and completely disrespectful to the victims, the survivors, and the officers, firefighters and medical personnel who were there that day. Several of the victims were religious, and were active in their churches. Pull your head out and get back into the real world. Stop insulting the people who are down in the trenches every damn day trying to make your sorry ass safe!

This raid was a tragedy of democracy. The "informant" is probably a young woman who has guilty consciences that torments them. She has shamed her other wives and husband. Bringing outsiders in to a marriage is shameful. She's probably a spoiled child who was not ready for the blessing of polygamy. Now we are paying for her immature nature.

You even admit that she wasn't old enough to marry, and then you talk about shaming HER OTHER WIVES!! If homosexuality is wrong in your eyes and the eyes of your church, why are you contradicting yourself? To belittle someone when you practice the same things is just plain WRONG. Personally, I've seen more same sex relationships last just as long or longer than a traditional marriage. Try belittling something else. If this young woman was brought up in your faith, then why would she be spoiled? Again, try to not contradict yourself, especially in the same paragraph.

Thora I guess from your comments you are one of the "dutiful wives"Tell me have you heard of stockholm syndrome.

Families are sick & disgusting for you?

No families aren't sick.Breeding girls like cattle to satisfy the twisted lusts of old perverts is.

How could an uneducated man like Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon

Easy he made it up

Motherhood is a blessed & honorable job

Not when its forced, especially on girls just out of puberty by dirty old men

that God designed women to be. hahahahahahaha your god designed sweet F>A

It is brainwashing to to pressure girls to go to college.

A parents job is to prepare thier children for life, this is best done by teaching what the rules are and paving the way hopefully to a better future. Not to "marry them off at the earliest oppertunity to a life of abuse from some old pervert. But to help them gain knowledge and not on some rehashed fairy tales for thier sense of right and wrong.

Why is it that only the women of the FLDS have come on here and "spoken" for their way of religon, it you can call it that? Where are the men defending their pervertedness? Huh? Because that's what it is. It's really patriarchal domination.

The FLDS women wouldn't know how to have an original thought without it being spewed from their men first. Where are their voices. Can't they speak for themselves about this so called wonderful idea of life you've had?

Oh, my. I came out to work on a paper tonight, and have found myself reading tons of stuff on these FLDS folks. What a nest of cultish madness. Personal stories of young women who fled, stories of the 'lost boys' in Arizona and Utah who've been excommunicated and dumped in the desert, some as young as 13, to go fend for themselves. For some, their anti-church crime was rolling up their shirt sleeves while working in the sun. Of course, really, it seems that the leaders get rid of the young men in order to assure enough young women to marry off as plural wives to old creepers. I am so disgusted by this situation, and the responses of law enforcement and governmental officials I could just scream!

Orrin Hatch supported these creeps.

The governor 'doesn't have the resources' to deal with the issues.

The cops are church members, and follow Jeffs' laws above those of the state.

Complaints about younger sisters going missing are totally ignored. There was a particular case I read where the older sister of a girl brought the case to the attention of authorities AT THE SAME TIME that they were looking for Elizabeth Smart. Elizabeth's case was taken seriously, the case of the other young girl, also 14, was ignored. Why? She and her family were a part of the FLDS; Elizabeth Smart was abducted. This younger sister hasn't been seen since 2001. How's that for abducted.

Just case after case, story after story.

And then, to top it off, I managed to link to a (seemingly) mainstream LDS person's website, where the writer (unsure whether male or female) was up in arms that there is such outcry over child brides, and the fact that these girls are having babies with their husbands, while other teen girls in society at large are having babies too, but where is the hue and cry over that? What is really the difference? And why is it okay to have a baby at 16 if you're not married, but a criminal case to have a baby at 16 if you are married?

Please! Like your average 16 year old mom has the child of a 50 year old? By and large, 50 is bona fide OLD when you're 16. Not fucking likely.

And then some bright commenter threw in, for yucks I must assume, the idea that if people have an open relationship, it's their own business, so why can't people have multiple wives? This writer seems to confuse consent with coercion.

Absolutely some of the most disturbing stuff I've read in a while.

Years, decades of complaints, and no action.

The Hare Krishnas did (maybe still do) this whole child-bride thing too. No multiple wives, but they betrothed the girls at 10 or 11, and set them the task of learning to serve their husbands, washing clothing and feet, serving food, whatever... until they started their cycles. Then it was right into bed and pumping out babies. One friend of my sister had 3 kids by 17. Her husband, at the time of her betrothal, was 35. Just fucking wrong. Nobody bothered them either. Years of documented sexual and physical abuse, illegal marriages, murders... and the only thing that ever got the attention of the authorities was copyright infringement. Can't have the leaders making money off of copyrighted images! Raping little boys, though, that's cool. Go right ahead.

I had a really mean, sarcastic post written, but I just deleted it because I realised something.

Thora and Collette, the fact that you are even reading and responding to this column is astounding.Congratulations. You are out defending (or in this case attempting to defend) your viewpoints vigorously and engaging in discussion with those with whom you disagree.

Many of your peers are too scared to do so because they suspect that they would fail at rational debate.

Though I don't share your views, I think it is fantastic that you are discussing this.

Collette and Thora, I just wanted to add one thing: People have been arguing for many thousands of years, and there is a sort of art to it. People make mistakes when they argue (including me). Some of the rules that people have discovered for how to argue more correctly are described here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_Thinkingand some of the most common mistakes that people make when they argue are described here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_fallacies

I'm not going to charge into this debate with my opinion; but i'm interested in whether or not you (Thora) and Collette are able to justify your views.

I'm not an FLDS member, and I'm stuck in NZ, so probably the only chance I will ever get to hear what you call God's Truth will be your responses on this blog.Please convince me.

I happened to write a paper for college about this a few years ago when all of this was just kind of starting to make the news. They are cultish freaks. Unfortunately these women do not know any other way of life, so yeah, they're going to stick up for it.

Here is one of the more sad parts of my research:"Often times a young girl will be forced to marry her own relatives. In doing so, they have dozens of imbred children. Many die shortly after birth, or they miscarry. According to an article written by Greg Burton, of the Salt Lake Tribune, one girl was born with two vaginas and two uteruses but no vaginal or bowel opening. Congenital blindness and dwarfism are common among the Kingstons, as are microcephaly, spina bifida, Down syndrome, kidney disease and abnormal leg and arm joints. The Kingstons are a polygamist family that was founded by Charles Elden Kingston (Betty Webb)".

It is not unusual for the women to be expected to give birth every year until her body is no longer able. In doing so, this assures that the husband will receive his place in the “Highest Heaven” (Betty Webb).

"Many of the families will have more than 20 children from different fathers and mothers all living within the same home".

Here is the link for the whole thing.http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/2005/03/polygamy.html

Actually, Joe Smith stole the bible from Spaulding. Google "spaulding papers" and take a look.

It seems to me that the US Army was getting ready to invade Utah and handle the "mormon problem" when suddenly the Mormons changed their tune on polygamy. Some backroom deal was made and poof, Utah's a state. All of it stinks.

Thora: How could an uneducated man like Joseph Smith write the Book of Mormon?He'd never been to Egypt so how did he translate the reformed egyptian of the tablets?

Exactly! Let's think this one through, Thora. How could an uneducated man (who had been previously convicted of being a con artist for 'treasure hunting' using a 'seer stone' to 'divine' the location of 'treasure' that he had previously buried the night before) possibly be able to read 'reformed Egyptian' tablets which he would not allow other people to see? Lemme think... oh yeah, that's right, he made it all up!

Consider the source of the story, Thora. I hate to say it, but your life is based on an elaborate con job (and an impressive one at that). I hope, for your sake, that you wake up and see reality as it is one day.

Paul: Thora and Collette, the fact that you are even reading and responding to this column is astounding.

I was thinking along the same lines.

It is encouraging that these two women are coming here and reading and commenting. It says that they 1) have some autonomy and can act for themselves. And 2) that the facts outlined in PM’s post bother them. There is some inner part of them that feels the need to lash out and cover up the truth. Something inside them must say that what goes on in their families isn’t right.

It also means they have access to the Internet and can begin to research things on their own; they can self-educate. Let’s hope they take advantage of that. I think that if anyone wants to reach out to us here we would be willing to help. There is a great big wonderful universe out here that you might like to get to know.

Having spent several years working with child victims of sexual abuse, I had to turn the news off. The images and the stories broke my heart. I'm a very openminded person and generally believe that everyone's religion or lack thereof deserves basic respect. However, not when said religion promotes child abuse. A lot of people don't realize what kind of effects sexual abuse has on children, but I've seen the psychological, emotional, behavioral, social scars that it leaves. And all the YFZ bullshit is on an astronomically larger scale than anything I've ever dealt with. I find it all absolutely horrifying.

PM-I love you. I totally and completely love you. this is my short answer to Collette: Fuck You. I am a believer in God, blah blah blah, but to cloak this kind of abuse and, yes, pervsersion behind the veil of religion disgusts me; and you know what? You, as a human being, disgust me. I am a white, middle class woman who is raising four wonderful, beautiful children on her own-all of whom are white, too. Do you really honeslty think that it is only men of color who abandon their responsibilities and leave their wives and children? If so, you are delusional and need serious help. Like, mental help.

When my ex-husband-also, obviously, white-brought home a lovely STD from fucking one of the Bishop's daughters, I got it and it very nearly killed me and my baby-he was born two months early. And the fact that his actions were completely overlooked yet I was somehow responsible made me leave that church. It is totally NOT okay for men to get to fuck multiple women-and in the instance of your whack-job FLDS, abuse little girls and somehow believe themselves to be exalted and blessed. That is so not like any God I choose to believe in!

Also, I know homosexual parents who are better parents than a whole LOT of white, middle-to-upper class parents, so to make the assumptions based on your twiated beliefs that "they" are bad is ignorance, plain and simple. Unlike you, they are doing what they can to protect and love their children to the best of your abilities, unlike you and others of your ilk.

I am a believer in God; Pmomma knows this about me and chooses to listen to me anyway; I try to allow other people of all faiths or none the freedom to believe whatever they choose to believe-I am that firm and solid in my own choices. But you know what? you are wrong. Your beliefs are wrong, because they tell you what any two year old should learn: hurting people and making it holy is an abomination, and if anyone goes to hell, it isn't going to be us. WE as a nation will stop you, have faith in THAT.

I understand all the anger and frustration; I am angry and frustrated over this situation too. But I think we need to keep in mind that Thora, Collette and all the women like them have been brainwashed to actually believe this stuff. They know no other way of life. When you've been brainwashed to believe crazy things, to you they aren't crazy. No amount of anger and explanation is going to remove those beliefs. This is something that is going to take a lot of time for these women to come out of. It appears to me that they don't see their children as we do - amazing extensions of our own DNA to be lovingly raised and valued for who they are. The children in FLDS are the means to an end - heaven - and that's it.

PM, thank you for blogging about this. We have been searching for atheists/humanists who are talking about it and you're the only one I've found so far. There must be more, somewhere, right? Anyone know if any humanists groups are volunteering in any way to help?

They will cut their hair (god's crowning glory), paint them with whores make-up, and give them to boys with no holy bond to court in worldly ways.

Give them to boys? No, no, no!!!! Colette, Thora, and any other FLDS ladies who might be reading this, in the "worldly" world of the 21st century U.S., nobody is allowed to give girls to anyone. Girls are not property. Young women, over the age of consent, may give themselves to anyone they want... but most of us would wish they find someone with a complementary personality who will support them through life as they support him (or her, or any variation of them).

I also say, as being happily married for 28 years, that one can find a good husband without wearing makeup, with bottlecap glasses, and not being particularly pretty or immodest. Heart, mind, intelligence, and an ability to cook were what I offered, and they were enough.

Like others here, I don't have any particular argument with polygamy. But bedding girls younger than the age of consent is rape, DAMMIT! And abandoning adolescent boys is damnable. Your prophet(s) have a whole lot to answer for.

I'm horrified by this whole story. Like many other people, I had no idea that the rape and abuse and brainwashing of women in this faith system could actually happen in the 21st century. I actually knew next to nothing about Mormonism. Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Like many others, I'm interested in how I can help these people.

What's also concerning to me is the comment that this is why religion is bad and should be abandoned. There is an enormous difference between these particular people and beliefs and many other devout, compassionate, law-abiding and humanitarian religious people. It surprises me that some people can't see the difference.